FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is concerned with a conveyor device for supplying bulk foods in a measured manner, and is particularly concerned with a device which scoops articles from a hopper and supplies them to another unit in a measured manner.
Hoppers are frequently used to supply bulk foods such as corn flakes, granular materials and the like in a measured manner. Technicians, however, have had a troublesome problem in regard to the relation between the shape of a hopper and the hydrodynamic behavior of the materials.
That is, the hopper has a structure in which it is narrowed toward the lower part. While the materials are descending toward the lower part in the hopper, the lateral pressure exerted among the materials often causes them to maintain their balanced state, giving rise to the occurrence of a so-called bridge phenomenon in which the materials cease to descend. As a result, when the materials are being descended from the upper part of the hopper to the lower part thereof, the supply of the materials is substantially stopped or the materials are poorly supplied. Further, in regard to means for supplying the materials from the hopper to a measuring container by passing it beneath the hopper, it is necessary to provide an opening-closing means on the lower part of the hopper as well as to bring the timing into conformity between the opening-closing means and the conveyance of the measuring containers, rendering the construction quite complicated.
It has, therefore, been damanded to provide a supplying device of this kind which is free of the bridge phenomenon and which is simply constructed.